This is another in my series of brief yet relevant radio job descriptions.
The job description for a Radio Station Manager or General Manager:
To support and facilitate the efforts of employees to serve our customers’ (i.e., listeners and advertisers) needs.
The manager should be spending every moment of his or her time doing whatever it takes to make it easier for the station’s employees to serve the station’s customers.
In a radio world in which almost all “emotion” that appears in advertising or imaging is “faux emotion,” this piece by Astral Media Vancouver’s John Masecar is a reminder that there is such a thing as honest emotion that doesn’t rely some announcer trying oh-so-hard to sound “sincere.”
I intended this to be a “feel good” blog posting, sharing a video clip of one of the greatest radio personalities ever.
As I began writing, however, I realized I was angry.
Part of me is urging, “Hide the anger. Just share the video, say something sentimental, and let it be a ‘feel good’ blog posting.”
Another part of me says what I censored from my own blog post title:
“The Radio Hall of Fame can kiss my ass.”
A few days ago I was privileged to host a live Q&A teleseminar with Gary Burbank, who spent 35 years doing more things brilliantly than any radio personality I’ve ever heard.
I don’t think the geniuses at the Radio Hall of Fame will fix their inane voting system (bizarre categories — one year Gary was nominated as a “radio pioneer” — combined with expecting retired jocks to compete for votes with jocks who still are on-air and have the promotional support of their stations) during Gary’s lifetime.
Many years from now he’ll be inducted posthumously.
And his legion of surviving fans and radio colleagues will bitterly ask, “Where were you when he was still alive?”
Here are the final moments of a monumental radio career.
Here’s another in my series of brief yet relevant radio job descriptions.
The job description for a Radio Production Director:
To create and maintain the highest possible quality on-air product that simultaneously sells or promotes and captivates our audience’s attention, interest & imagination.
The worst thing that ever happened to the radio advertising industry occurred sometime in the last century when some well-meaning person foolishly labelled the department in charge of crafting radio commercials as “Creative.”
Today, being “creative” is the goal of most people who produce radio advertising.
They even give awards for the “most creative” commercials.
This is the first thing you must understand:
Radio advertising is not a creative exercise. It’s mass salesmanship.
The goal of a commercial is not to “be creative;” it is to sell.
“Creativity” should never be your goal.
Creativity is a means to an end.
People who make their livings by harnessing their creativity never wake up in the morning thinking, “I really want to be creative today!”
Instead, they wake up with a problem they need to solve:
The novelist wants to make the middle chapters move more quickly.
The playwright is having trouble making the third act work.
The architect is puzzling over how to achieve the client’s goals with the limited amount of available space.
The goal of a radio commercial should be to move the targeted consumer to action….not to prove to the world how creative you are.
